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Glenelly Man Confident About Selling Painting Of Sausages For £100 Million
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
A man from Glenelly yesterday announced that a painting he drew at the weekend will go to auction with a reserve price of £100 million.
The announcement comes only days after a painting by Irish-born painter Francis Bacon was sold for a record-breaking £89m just last week.
“Them Dubliners have always been a bunch of chancers”, declared Malkie McArdle, an unemployed rain maker, who only took up painting at the beginning of October. “He painted this half-arsed picter of a man or a spoon or a tree or something. I’m a bit fuzzy on the details. A bit like that fecker’s painting in fact. Anyway, he stuck a hefty price on it and some eedjit went and paid it. I thought to myself, I could do that. So I have done”.
His piece of art, entitled, ‘Sausages At Rest’, depicts a value-pack of a dozen Cookstown sausages which he found at the back of the fridge.
“There was this boy years ago who done a picter of tomato soup or baked beans or something, and he got a lock of pounds for it too”, said McArdle. “So why not sausages? This is a one-off. Them sausages is all
eaten up so it can never be re-created. That’s why it’s so expensive”.
The painting was created using a mixture of engine oil, crayons, mud, and some Tayto crisps which accidentally fell onto the canvass.
“The famous artists like Rembrandt and Van Gogh and the one that was the policeman were always using oils and the like, so I did the same”, said a proud McArdle. “I had a wee can of two-stroke sitting in the shed that I use for the lawnmower. It all went a bit runny and if I’m being honest the whole yolk looks a bit shit, but that’s not the point. Some boy in Florida or Paris or Americay or somewhere’ll pay big money for that. I’m just sitting back and waiting for the call. Deadly”.
McArdle is adamant that the £100 million asking price is firmly non- negotiable, although he has said privately that he would consider settling for £5 or another pack of sausages.
Councillor Denies That Florida Visit To Consider Importing Bog Is A ‘Jolly’
BY SHENGAS MCGLUMPHIE
Eyebrows were raised yesterday in the county over leaked plans for one of its councillors to visit Florida as part of a fact find on behalf of East Tyrone District Council.
Copy travel documents showed that recently-elected mid-Ulster Councillor Seamie ‘Red Boy’ McCloy, intends to spend three weeks in Florida next month at a cost of £8,500 at the taxpayer’s expense, conducting a feasibility study on importing bog and peat back to Tyrone rather than producing it locally.
Challenged on the abundance of it which already sits in the county, McCloy retorted,
“Jaysus. That’s the whole point of the visit, isn’t it? How do we know whether it’s feasible without going to see it? We need a bird’s eye view of the area to assess potential for excavation. And if the best way of doing that is from the top of a 300-foot high mega-rollercoaster, then that’s just pure coincidence. Getting bog from America might actually be cheaper than producing it locally. Or something like that”.
The colourful councillor has continually courted controversy since making the headlines in 2012 when he was found in the ladies’ cloakroom of the Council offices wearing an odd number of socks. He has since been embroiled in an embarrassing incident at a farm near Windmill which he claimed was simply him ‘being overly-friendly with a labrador’.
McCloy, aghast at accusations
“It’s all nonsense”, said an angry McCloy, thumping his desk so hard that several bottles of suntan lotion fell off. “And anyway, the judge ruled not proven, so go and feck. I’ve dedicated my life to Tyrone, trying to raise it up to the standards of the nice Ulster counties like Derry, Sligo, Monaghan and suchlike. That’s why I need to go to Florida for three weeks. Or four depending on the complexities. And the weather”.
Questioned about whether the Galbally man was going on the trip to get away from the controversy around some of the decisions he has made since moving into office, McCloy was uncompromising. Wearing an enormous foam hand and jabbing the big sticky-out finger to make his point, he said,
“Listen. Do you think sat in a jumbo for 8 hours is going to be fun? The only movie they’re showing is ‘Les Miserables’, and I can’t stand the Germans. I’ve made mistakes in the past. I’ll admit it. But all I’m trying to do is modernise the county. And if ‘Naked Tuesday’ is a wee bit too much for some of thon puritans in the East Tyrone Council offices, then they should wise up. The Florida trip is pure business, nothing else. I’m certainly not looking forward to it. I’ve got a mountain of work to do. And I’ve only got three sleeps to go before I leave”.
The councillor also faced criticism earlier this year for going to New York City on 17 March to explore the possibility of the importation of Guinness to the county.
Tyrone Tribulations 